Peck Up Your Troubles
Peck Up Your Troubles is a 1945 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng. Title The title is a pun on the 1915 World War I marching song, "Pack Up Your Troubles". Plot Sylvester is determined to get a woodpecker that just moved in, high in a tree. He climbs, but the bird greases the tree; he starts to cut it down, but a mean dog stops him (this becomes a running gag). Several other attempts follow; at one point, he puts his paw into the bird's home, and the bird puts a tomato there; Sylvester squishes it, and the bird dresses as an angel to torment him, but Sylvester sees through the disguise. Finally, Sylvester tries to blow up the tree; the dog again intervenes. Sylvester gets the dynamite off the tree and puts out the fuses, but the bird has lit them again, and now Sylvester really becomes an angel. Availability * (1992) LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 3, Side 4: Friz Freleng (Uncensored) Censorship *On Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United States, the part where Sylvester holds the gun to his head and attempts to shoot himself after the "angel" woodpecker gives him the gun (only for Sylvester to realize he's been duped and blast the woodpecker in the rear end) was cut to remove the short scene where the gun goes off and Sylvester ducks before he blasts the woodpecker in the rear end.The Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Guide: P http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-p.aspx This scene however airs uncensored on overseas Cartoon Network and 'Boomerang '''channels, as evident in the video on the page here. Notes * This is the first short where Sylvester chases birds for food. This is also the first cartoon where Sylvester does not speak. * The woodpecker in this short, was originally set to be a recurring character, who would be paired with Sylvester by Friz Freleng, but after taking over Bob Clampett's unproduced 4th Tweety short project (which pairs Tweety with Sylvester for the first time), Freleng decided that the woodpecker will be replaced by Tweety as Sylvester's most prominent co-star. Although the idea was initially objected by producer Eddie Selzer, Selzer then allowed Freleng to use Tweety in place of the woodpecker, which ultimately earned the WB animation studio its first Academy Award. * The woodpecker in this short would eventually reappear in "A Peck o' Trouble" in 1953, which was directed by Robert McKimson. It was paried with the cat Dodsworth who appeared in Kiddin' the Kitten. * This marks Sylvester's first death. He would later die in "I Taw A Putty Tat", "Back Alley Oproar", "Mouse Mazurka", "Tweety's S.O.S.", "Tweety's Circus", "Trick or Tweet", "Tweet and Lovely", "Rebel Without Claws", and "The Wild Chase". Sylvester has "died" a total of nine times, the most for any ''Looney Tunes character. * This is Sylvester's second appearance. In this short, he is colored a little differently to his classic black and white coloring - here he is black and light grey. * This is the first appearance of Hector the Bulldog. However, a dog with the same appearance, Butch, appears in a 1944 short "Birdy and the Beast". * The American Turner print has red borders, and the European Turner print has blue borders. Because the short has no dialogue, both dubbed versions keep the original ending card, unlike most dubbed version shorts, although some non-dialogue shorts "Rhapsody in Rivets" (1941) and "Double Chaser" (1942) got dubbed ending cards. In addition, the original ending music is also kept. * This short was re-released into the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program on March 24, 1951. Like most reissued Merrie Melodies at the time, the original closing bullet titles were kept. All Merrie Melodies that were part of the Associated Artists Productions package originally released between 9/1/44-7/10/48 had their original closings bullet titles kept, except for the Cinecolor ones. Gallery Peckupyourtroubles.jpg|A scene that has been cut on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United States of America. 31b35e9a0.jpg References Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng Category:Sylvester Cartoons Category:1945 Category:Shorts Category:Blue Ribbon reissues Category:Looney Tunes Shorts Category:Cartoons written by Michael Maltese Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling Category:Cartoons with layouts by Hawley Pratt Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Hawley Pratt Category:Cartoons with layouts by Paul Julian Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Paul Julian Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons produced by Eddie Selzer Category:Cartoons in a.a.p. package Category:Cartoons with no dialogue